


Pallor Mortis

by Just_Mad_Enough



Series: Negligible Senescence [5]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, hope is a nasty little thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 03:36:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13755471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Mad_Enough/pseuds/Just_Mad_Enough
Summary: Pallor mortis (Latin: pallor "paleness", mortis "of death"), the first stage of death, is an after-death paleness that occurs in those with light/white skin.





	Pallor Mortis

**Author's Note:**

> I am back with more heartbreak! I should NOT be as happy about that as I am, but I never claimed that I'm all that sane^^.  
> So! I have a beta reader now! HUGE thanks to ScooterThyme that she took the time to muddle through this story!  
> She's also gone back and combed through the first few installments, and I already edited them.  
> Now, on with the show!

He wakes up abruptly, with a gasp and barely contained, pure, clear, _happiness_. He gets out of bed and stands, and with barely a thought they’re there, _his wings are there_ , real and magnificent as ever (and he doesn’t care that it might be vain. He had always been proud and pride wasn’t what made him Fall).

Before he does anything else, he falls to his knees and prays. He sends his eternal gratitude up as loud as he knows to, and he hopes Father is actively listening, because he needs Him to know how thankful he is.

Then he gets dressed in his old robes. He will need them, will need something sturdy that covers as much of him as possible. Hell isn’t a pleasant place by anyone’s standards, and he has to collect a brother and celebrate.

This is the best day he’s had ever since he came to Earth to get Lucifer back to Hell

 

*** *** ***

He strides along the seemingly never ending, labyrinthine paths of Hell, brushing ash off his shoulders as he goes. His biggest grin is plastered to his face, and no matter how much he tries to look solemn, he just _can’t_.

He’s endlessly annoyed that Lucifer, for once, plays hard to get.

The stubborn idiot has to know he’s here. He is still, after all, the King of Hell. He should know when someone living is entering his domain. He even tried to send a prayer to him, both directed at Lucifer, and as a last-ditch effort, to Samael. But no, of course the idiot is ignoring him.

It takes him hours to reach The Palace.

It’s the most hideous thing he’s ever seen. A grotesque caricature of Samael’s Tower.

The Lightbringer’s home in the Silver City had been one of the most beautiful buildings Heaven had to offer. A lovely, white tower in the middle of a riotous garden. Samael had never bothered to bring any order into the flowers, had enjoyed the way they grew however they felt like growing. In hindsight, maybe that should’ve given him pause. But then again, the garden had been a thing of beauty, and his brother always enjoyed the beautiful things.

The tower itself was a simple structure, really. No delusions of grandeur or anything. White stones, broad windows and no roof. There was no need for one, for the weather was always perfect, never too hot or too cold and it never rained – and still the flowers grew.

Samael had had his bed on the top floor, sleeping under the stars he had set alight. But here, in Hell… it was disturbing, plain and simple.

There were walls around it, and he knew (because he had compared after he first saw the horror of it) that the fields of rotten demon corpses lay exactly where the flower beds should be. The building itself was made of blackened bones and steel, tempered in the very fires that had scorched his brother down to raw flesh, muscles and sinews.

It wasn’t as high as its heavenly counterpart, but exactly as wide. He knew from past visits that there was a throne about halfway into the room and a partition behind it, hiding a bed and the few personal belongings that his brother had bothered to keep here.

Lucifer could’ve built himself a proper palace, with all the luxuries he desired. He certainly knew how to live a pampered life, as the penthouse and the various houses up on earth made ample proof of.

And yet… well. Never mind now. With renewed vigor he strides into the building and shouts his brother’s name. _Still_ no answer.

Well, at least not from his brother.

Some demons scuttle out of his way, and one of the really dumb ones gets up from the throne (that one is _really_ lucky that it was him and not Lucifer walking in here right now) and has the gall to look annoyed.

He kicks a few skulls in (literally – he had nearly forgotten how much _stronger_ his Grace made him) and demands the whereabouts of his brother.

He doesn’t like the answer he gets, so he takes some more time and searches. At one point, he plants himself on the highest place he can find, and closes his eyes; concentrates all of his senses on Lucifer and still comes up empty.

Dread begins to settle in his stomach, but he doesn’t let it. This is the best day he’s had ever since he came to Earth to get Lucifer back to Hell, and he will _not_ let it be ruined.

 

*** *** ***

The Silver City is… well, heavenly.

Full of joy and music and laughter. His siblings flit around, some on errands, some just enjoying their existence. He lets the calm that permeates the air seep into his bones and instantly relaxes again.

For a few minutes he takes everything in, is glad to finally be able to come back home.

Then he marches in search of Harahel. She might be nearly as annoying as Lucifer himself, but she is, after all, Knowledge. She should know where to find their wayward brother.

 Only she doesn’t. She just shakes her head, tells him he fell off her radar the moment he died the second time on the same day and walks away.

She seems off. He hunts down Michael and Gabriel next. They look pale as corpses, both of them, and for the first time in literal millennia they look sad instead of angry at the mention of Lucifer and the dread creeps back in.

They direct him to the Tower, and for the precious few minutes it takes him to get near enough to see it, he hopes. He hopes with everything he is that he hasn’t been the only one forgiven, and that he will find his brother asleep in his old bed.

When he looks up, he expects it to look just as beautiful and idyllic as it always had, even with its owner forbidden to even enter the Silver City for such a long time.

But he sees only dead grass, wilting flowers and a ruin where once stood a home.

This is the best day he’s had ever since he came to Earth to get Lucifer back to Hell, and he will _not_ let it be ruined. He’s also lying to himself.

*** *** ***

 

He doesn’t know how he manages to make it through telling Maze.

There’s hope in her eyes first, then murder and then… despair. He wants the murder back. That last look is nothing that should ever exist in a demon. It’s against their nature. So he leaves when she tells him to, and shortly after he finds himself in the Mojave.

He knows Lucifer had been dumped here, somewhere. He looks down at the ground as if expecting to find some tracks to lead him right to the place. As he does, he sees his owns hands.

They’re shaking.

He loses control, then. Strikes out with everything he has, wings growing sharp as blades, cutting the little vegetation that exists to pieces. His fists slam against boulders at first, and his screams chase away the last remaining animals in the vicinity.

After a few lifetimes packed into maybe half an hour, he finds himself kneeling on the ground. He brings his hands together in a prayer the second time this day an he waits and waits and waits, but no one answers. No one _ever_ seems to answer anymore.

His laugh is bitter and slightly unhinged even to his own ears, but he can’t change it and he can’t stop.

Was that the big plan? Had he been sent to earth to create a murder weapon? Just thinking on how thrilled he had been, when Father had sent him here to bless Penelope Decker.

He looks at his hands again. They should be bloody and shredded; but his Grace is back, and stones are not the right weapons to draw blood from an Angel. There’s no breath in his lungs, and he desperately tries to get some air past his closed-up throat.

His wings rustle in the slight breeze and their weight makes him nauseous. When he buries his hands in the feathers, he has the sudden urge to tighten his fingers and rip the things right out. He wants to cut them off, stash his Grace in a jar and give both back.

He doesn’t need them. He _needs_ his brother back, sarcastic, narcissistic ass or not.

_This had been the best day he’s had ever since he came to Earth to get Lucifer back to Hell, and he will_ not _let it be ruined._ Famous last words.

 

*** END ***

**Author's Note:**

> So I know, not even half as much drama as in the other installments. BUT I also think that Amenadiel would try to keep it together for as long as possible. Anyway, let me know if you liked it?  
> And I know I already said it, but thank you ScooterThyme for your help!


End file.
